Play is an important part of human and animal development. A wide variety of devices have been created to assist in the objective of providing meaningful and rewarding play time for children and pets. By way of example only and not by limitation, in the arena of dog training, it is important that the trainer establish a close bond with the animal in order for training to be effective and meaningful. The most effective training is training that is delivered in a positive, playful and safe environment. Additionally, there are times when training an animal when the objective is simply to play.
Again, by way of example and not by limitation, a wide variety of devices have been developed for the distribution of treats to pets in the form of treat dispensing toys. The Herrenbruck patent, U.S. Pat. No. 6,484,671, discloses a treat dispensing toy with a sound device. The toy is inedible and contains small treats that work their way past interior obstacles to an exit. The Miller patent, U.S. Pat. No. 6,186,096, discloses a retractable, extendable, edible chew treat in a hard inedible covering. A human must manipulate the toy to extract or retract a treat from the toy. The Markham patents, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,129,053 and 5,947,061, disclose an inedible toy with treat receiving and retaining receptacles of various sizes and depths in the surface of the toy. Another Markham patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,865,146, discloses an edible treat retained in a deformable, inedible bouncing pet toy. As the dog chews on the inedible toy, the treat is crushed and parts of it escape the container. The Mauldin patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,813,366, discloses another inedible toy with a receptacle for retaining an edible treat.
While the idea of including edible treats with a toy has clearly been done, problems exist with prior art devices and methods. One problem is with the delivery of the treats from the interior of the device. In some cases, the items held within the container are distributed almost immediately such that the duration of the play time and interest in the device is very short. Another problem is with the containers themselves. In the situation where the container is not activated by human movement, prior art containers are more or less predictable in their movements and therefore less interesting to animals. Thus, there is a need in the art for providing a container apparatus and method which maintains the interest of the user for extended periods of time and provides for interesting, unpredictable movements while slowly dispensing items contained within the container. It, therefore, is an object of this invention to provide an improved container apparatus and method for dispensing the items, such as animal treats, for example only.